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Hannah Baker (Book)
Hannah Baker is one of the main characters in Thirteen Reasons Why, a novel by Jay Asher. She is a deceased character from the beginning of the novel. However the first time Jay wrote the novel, she survived her suicide attempt. Hannah a simple girl at heart. She likes candy, hot chocolate, blue nail polish, filling out surveys, and reading and writing poetry. Deeply romantic, she wants to find love, and is exploring relationships naturally, at her own pace. She's also smart and very friendly. Biography Hannah Baker is a friend in need, smart and understanding. However people were very quick to turn her into a rumor, a thing, an object, almost every friend she had, turned against her in someway or stopped being nice to her, others went to extremes and led her to her suicide. That's what these tapes are all about. It's through her recordings, and Clay Jensen's reactions to them, that we get to know Hannah. We hear Hannah's description of her life at her most desperate and disturbed, which makes it easy to forget that she wasn't always this way. By the end of the story, we can understand what happened to her, but we don't ever really know her – and that seems to be the feeling she got from everyone around her, too. We don't know what she was like before the thirteen experiences. And we certainly don't know how she might have felt about herself if she'd been able to get some help. Early Life The summer before her freshman year, Hannah Baker moved to the town where all of her problems started. It was there that she met Kat, the girl who lived next-door, and they quickly became friends. Kat told Hannah stories about Justin Foley, a boy she had feelings for. Before school started, Kat moved away and Hannah fell in love with the boy she left behind. A week before school began, Hannah was called to meet another student new to town, named Jessica Davis. The two of them went to the local cafe and befriended Alex Standall. Over a short period of time, they began a routine where the three of them would go to the cafe after school, talking about how their days went. While befriending Jessica and Alex, Hannah also befriended Justin Foley. She began having a reoccurring dream where she would have her first kiss with him. Hannah started to become closer to Justin and eventually, her dream came true. A month after their first kiss, Hannah and Justin were content with their relationship — or so Hannah thought. Soon she learned that Justin himself had spread a rumor about the two of them having a sexual encounter during their first kiss. Knowing she couldn't disprove a rumor, Hannah kept quiet, earning herself a bad reputation, and thus started what she began to call "the snowball effect". After a few weeks, Hannah, Jessica and Alex stopped going to the cafe and their friendship died out. Soon afterwards, Hannah discovered that Alex started a list deeming which freshman girls were "hot" or "not" based on their body parts. She found that she was in the "hot" column in Best Ass in the Freshman Class, ''and across from her name, in the "not" column, was Jessica's name. She realized Alex had done this to anger Jessica, as this was revenge for her breaking up with him while they dated for a short period of time. Jessica confronted Hannah about the list, believing there was something between Hannah and Alex since he had put her in the "hot" column. No matter how many times Hannah told Jessica this wasn't true, Jessica was far past believing her; the rumors going around about Hannah and Justin and then the sudden arrival of the list just seemed too convenient for her. Before leaving, Jessica scratched Hannah just above the eyebrow, leaving a permanent mark there, and the gossiping about Hannah began again. Tyler Down, a photographer for the yearbook committee, made Hannah feel unsafe at home after the rumors going around about her made her feel unsafe at school. He took pictures of her inside her room. Hannah talked to Courtney Crimsen about this and she came over to Hannah's house. They began a dirty conversation and a back rub, fully aware that Tyler was taking pictures. They drew open the curtains wider and found Tyler outside, running from them, and this stopped Tyler from taking pictures of her. All seemed well until Courtney started a dirty rumor about Hannah. After she knew Hannah heard about the rumors, Courtney asked her to give her a ride to a party, trying to keep Hannah on her good side and not in any way wanting to become her friend. Near Valentine's Day, Hannah filled out a school survey about herself in order to find her "perfect match" based on her interests. Marcus Cooley received Hannah as his perfect match on Valentine's Day and asked her out. During their date he tried to take advantage of her but called her a tease when Hannah didn't allow him to. After he left, Zach Dempsey tried to comfort her, but Hannah didn't answer any of his questions or statements to keep herself from crying. Eventually, he left and decided to get revenge on her for "rejecting" him in one of their shared classes, Peer Communications, where there was a system to give compliments or encouragements to someone anonymously: he stole Hannah's encouragements. Hannah confronted him about it, feeling as if he thought she didn't deserve any compliments or encouragement. Hannah started taking a poetry class with a boy named Ryan Shaver, but it turned out to be awful, so she and Ryan decided to exchange poetry with each other instead. He stole one of her poems and put it in his newspaper for the school, but some of her peers figured out she wrote the poem and mocked her for it. Hannah, upon hearing about Clay Jensen actually going to a party, attended the party. She and Clay talked for hours, connecting, and afterwards shared a kiss. During the kiss Hannah couldn't help but think of Justin and all of the others who betrayed her and she shouted at him. Clay tried to help, but she screamed at him to get out and he did; after he left she thought of all the people who caused her to be this way—''and then suicide. When she was still inside the bedroom, she saw Bryce Walker rape Jessica and leave. Hannah asked for a ride home from Jenny Kurtz and during their drive she crashed into a stop sign. Hannah said she had to call the police about this, but Jenny refused, thinking she'd get in trouble. Afterward, Hannah learned a car accident occurred at the site because of the missing stop sign and felt guilty for not calling the police earlier. Hannah went over to Tony's house and gave him her blue bike, and in return she asked for ways to record her voice, wanting to make a set of tapes so people would know why she killed herself. Tony gave her a voice recorder, unknowing of what she was planning, and she started to record the tapes — she talked about the people who were key reasons why she killed herself and wanted the tapes to be passed on to every person. If they didn't, Hannah decided to make sure someone else would have a second set of tapes to release out into the public so their stories would be known. Later, Hannah went to the after-party of Courtney's, where she and Bryce Walker were in her hot tub in their underwear. Hannah joined them. Bryce sexually touched her, and for the first and last time, Hannah gave in to her bad reputation and let him. Now knowing she wanted to kill herself, Hannah went to Mr. Porter, the school counselor, trying to give life one more chance; she recorded her whole conversation with him. She told him about how she wanted her life to end and how Bryce raped Jessica and Mr. Porter urged her to forget about it if she wouldn't press charges. She exited and Mr. Porter didn't go after her, knowing she'd kill herself. Hannah mailed the second set of tapes to Tony and the first set of tapes to Justin''—''then she took pills and killed herself, letting the thirteen reasons why she killed herself be aware of her story and finally start to think of the consequences of their actions. Tony was the only person she trusted. The Tapes Creating thirteen recordings on cassette tapes is an easy task. Hannah's execution of the tapes is elaborately planned. She even distributes individual starred maps to her listeners, which they're supposed to follow as they listen to her recordings. Taking all of this into consideration, we might even call Hannah manipulative. Yes, it's a harsh word, but Clay has taught us that it's okay to be angry at her, as long as we're respectful. If we look more closely, we'll see that Hannah's angry plan doesn't do her any good either. She isn't using the tapes for self-reflection, to try to figure out how she can gain power over her surroundings. Instead, she's trying to put her listeners in her shoes – to show them how it feels to be on a list, how it feels to be accused of things and have rumors spread about them. This is an exercise in spite, and it only confirms her belief that her problems are unsolvable. No matter how calculating she was about her plan, it's very clear from these tapes that Hannah isn't thinking straight. For example, Hannah reveals the names of some alleged criminals (Jenny Kurtz) but not others (Bryce Walker), regardless of how bad each person was to her. Also, she threatens to publicly release the tapes if her listeners don't do what she asks; but the last person on her list is Mr. Porter, who will almost certainly have to turn the tapes over to officials anyway – it's literally his job to do so. These tapes were definitely a plan made in desperation and we can hear it both through the anger and the confusion in Hannah's words. Towards the end, Clay Jensen describes what he saw when from those people who willingly knew that they contributed to her suicide. When the news broke that Hannah had killed herself, Clay saw that Ryan threw all of his notebooks and textbooks out of his lockers and ran out of school. Clay picked up a notebook that he threw and noticed that it was his poem notebook. Clay also describes how others reacted, some got up and walked out of class, and some began to break down, and overtime, Clay could see why they were reacting that way. 13 Stories, A Jury of 12 Although Hannah tells thirteen stories, there are only twelve people on her list: she devotes two chapters to Justin. Now here's something to think about: twelve is the number of people that make up a jury. What a terrible jury. Most of the people on the list have either spread or believed rumors about Hannah. They didn't try to get her testimony; they didn't give her a chance to present her own evidence or cross examine the witnesses – all that good stuff we learn about on Law and Order. Now she is paying these twelve back, but the stakes are even higher. Hannah is accusing them of what could be serious legal crimes, with serious legal penalties. For many of the people on the list, Hannah's tapes could make life seriously difficult. Hannah's character can't be viewed in a vacuum. It's actually really important to think about her in the context of her relationships with the twelve people on her list. So if you want to know more about Hannah, check out their character analyses and see how they fit into her life and death. Quotes ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Physical Appearance Blue eyes and long light brown hair (cut before she commits suicide). Possessions The Tapes Hannah recorded thirteen tapes, which she planned to send to the thirteen people that had had a part to play in hurting her enough for her to kill herself, she left them for the people who had hurt her so that they could understand why she did what she did and possibly make them change. The cassettes could also act as a type of revenge for her. She enlists Tony to deliver them and left him instructions. Bike Hannah owned a blue bike, which she gave to Tony in return for a way to record her voice. References Category:Book Characters